(Week 4) What are my strengths and weaknesses...Personal SWOT

SWOT =

Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats

SWOT analyses are often used for business or other organizations, but they can also be used for people. So...what can I say about myself in these areas? I've neer thought about this systematically before, so I'm not sure how this will go, but here goes an attempt at a personal self-analysis!

Top 5 Strengths
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• Healthy: My parents blessed me with a very healthy body. For the past 10 years, I think I can officially say I have never missed even one day of work due to being sick. I do get sick during vacation occasionally, but my body seems able to keep illness away when I have classes to teach. I've been able to run one full marathon and a half marathon each year for the past five years.
• Positive: Strangely, I can't seem to get into a negative mood. I just feel that complaining or feeling bad about something is a waste of time. I don't know where I got this. It just sort of developed over the years. I get irritated with things regularly, but they don't bother me deeply enough to be in a bad mood. But you never know when this might end, so watch out!
• Easy-Going: This can be a weakness, as you will see below, but I don't easily get obsessed with things. I'm very good at letting small things go. I like to think that I focus on the important things--at least that is the positive way of looking at my lack of attention to small details.
• Able to Focus: I can focus and get things done when I need to do them. For example, when I need to read or write something like a research paper, I am able to concentrate for several hours or even a whole to get something done, especially when I feel pressure for a deadline. This may not be a special strength in any way, but it has saved me numerous times. Below I'll talk about the problem of waiting too long before starting...but when I start I think I can do good work intensively under pressure.
• Care, want to help, and can listen: This is a little embarrassing to say about myself, but as I wrote last week, I think one of my most precious treasures is the ability to care about others. Also, a related thing is that I think my listening skills are not too bad (of course some people may disagree...and I know I need to be better). This is something that my parents helped me learn by showing me their examples of how they cared for many people in our community in Japan that needed help but were often neglected by others. I need to and want to put more caring into action like my parents did. I think that desire is a strength? Also, I think this strength makes me a good fit for my current career in teaching.

OK...that was quite embarrassing to have to say good things about myself. Next I get to embarrass myself further by saying what I'm not good at. This should be painful and fun at the same time.

Lowest 5 Weaknesses
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• Slow to get started: I definitely have trouble with procrastination. Whether it is a research paper project or checking students' homework or sorting photos of my children, I tend to push big projects away from myself until the absolutely last possible moment, almost like I am calculating how little time can I get that job finished in. (Mark's inner monologue) "How little time can I use to get this done...OK 65 minutes...let's start exactly 65 minutes before the deadline...and if anything goes wrong during that time such as a computer crash, that often means I end up missing the deadline. But I've gotten pretty good at calculating. The funny thing is my 8 year old son Michael does the same thing. Poor Michael for inheriting this from me.
• Conservative about trying new things
• Can't do two things at the same time very well
• Get stage fright in public speaking
• Afraid to be creative or expressive

More on the other ones at a later time! I have many other weaknesses, but if I found a lamp with a genie and he granted me five weakness-elimination wishes, I think those would be the five.

Do you have any similar ones?

Oh and I haven't written Opportunities and Threats...main opportunities would be that I have to find a new job in the near future due to being on a limited-term contract with ICU. That's a threat at the same time. In general, being in a university teaching job like I have is an immense opportunity because of the many talented people (like you) I get to meet and work with, and because we have longer vacations that allow us to try new projects or visit new areas of the world. As for main threats, that would include...Hmm...competitors or shrinking markets in business, but I don't think I really have anything threatening me at this point. Of course, the college student population is shrinking in Japan, so that is a threat to college English teaching, but in general the desire to study English well at a high level is increasing in Japan, so I'm not terribly worried.

More on this later!